


Live in Fear

by RobinTrigue



Category: World Wrestling Entertainment
Genre: Gen, The Bludgeoning Brothers, nonlinear, themes of ptsd
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-26
Updated: 2017-11-26
Packaged: 2019-02-07 07:29:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,251
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12836271
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RobinTrigue/pseuds/RobinTrigue
Summary: Erick rejoices in his freedom now that the Wyatt Family has disbanded. Luke does too.





	Live in Fear

**Author's Note:**

> Matthew 9:36 - When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them because they were confused and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.

Erick was relieved when Bray ended the Family. Relieved. He was free now.

After a couple weeks, he left his hotel room for an apartment. The hotel was always busy and disinfectant-clean, while the apartment was on the outskirts of town. It overlooked nothing in particular, but in the daylight there were shrubs between him and the winking lights of the highway. The floor was wooden and dusty and it creaked.

He didn’t get matches. He wasn’t sure who to talk to about that. If the WWE thought he deserved main event bookings, it would surely give them to him. Until then, he was directed to be a body in the ring, muscle mass while the decision makers fought each other. He helped backstage, lifting sound equipment into and out of trucks. He left at the end of the day with his body feeling tired, and he had never wanted anything more than that.

Erick’s first night in the apartment, he had stared at the wall for most of the evening. _Light must not be distorted and hidden._ In the end, he ripped the sconce out of the plaster, metal and glass coming away easily in his hand. The bare bulb hung down on fraying wires. His landlady was small, and the spare key had rattled in her wrinkled and spotted hand; he could overpower her if she confronted him about it. Methodically, he worked his way through the fixtures of the small space, revealing the light one bulb at a time.

When Bray hadn’t visited him in the secular hospital, it wasn’t because he had done anything wrong. It was because Bray was ending the Family. Bray had manipulated them, and in turn been manipulated by Randy. It wasn’t because Erick had been bad by getting injured and leaving his side for so long. Erick wasn’t doing anything bad now. He was out of Bray’s favour but it wasn’t his fault. It wasn’t. Bray was bad and he was free now.

The WWE scheduled Erick to fight Randy, and he felt like the glory was opening its arms to him once again. But Bray was in another feud.

“It’s a little bare,” the landlady said. “My grandson took everything with him when he was done with college. But it’ll shape up when you start moving your things in.” Erick didn’t have anything to bring from his hotel. The few possessions he had once had were no longer his long before the fire Randy started.

The sheds they used were always dim and quiet, filled with the rich swamp air and the chirping of frogs and nightflies. Their dirt was soft. Erick hadn’t realised how loud locker rooms were, all the wrestlers touching one another indiscriminately on the back or arm and talking loudly without rhythm. Erick liked to change near AJ, whose words had melody, but their meanings were all wrong.

He ducked his face into the slim metal gap of the locker, trying to smell the darkness. He didn’t emerge into the humming florescent until everything was quiet. There were only a few wrestlers left in the room now. Erick’s eye caught that of Luke, who was sitting in the farthest corner, doing nothing. They both looked away. It felt like shame.

Erick was relieved that the Family had ended.

The table in Erick’s apartment was small, a rectangle propped up on metal stilts with a chair at either end. _Come. Sit beside me, Brothers, and feast._ It scratched at Erick’s mind. He didn’t know which of the chairs to sit in. They were both equidistant from the centre. They were facing one another, though none had the right to face the Speaker of Truths.  He ate standing by the microwave, shovelling the easy mac into his mouth quickly so no one could catch him in the act. It burnt his tongue, but he’d never been one for food with much taste.

Fighting side by side with Luke was so easy, Erick didn’t even have to think about it. He got into the ring like sinking into deep water; eyes closed, deep breath, then letting his body do what came naturally. By fighting he was serving the great Purpose, and when he turned back to his corner, Luke was there, serving It too. The tag was like their hands passing through each other, and Erick could see Luke’s eyes close as he sank over the ropes, shutting out the glare and the cries. Doing what they were built to do.

Luke was still shifting from motel to motel. “Sometimes Zack and Mojo room with me, on the road,” he said, not looking up. “They... keep odd hours.” Erick understood without being told. Chaos. Sometimes he opened his window late at night, when animals were digging through the trash and only police sirens were awake. Their artificial wail wasn’t one Erick was used to hearing, and that made it all the more startling when it came. His jackrabbit heart would go off, waiting for punishment, heretical mind now clear of its doubtful thoughts.

He was beginning to have doubtful thoughts more often now. It made him sick into the WWE toilets.

Luke hadn’t watched the House of Horrors match either. He hadn’t watched any of Randy’s matches. “The Deceiver,” he called him.

Luke was also glad the Family was over. He and Erick had agreed.

Erick walked home every night to the outskirts of town, except tonight Luke drove him. Erick didn’t like to drive with people, but Luke never put on any music. No melodies covering the alluring lies of outsiders. They were able to sit in silence, with only headlights and night around them.

“What should the name be?” Jamie Noble had asked them, holding a pen and a clipboard.

“Brothers,” Erick had said. Luke had nodded. It had been the first thing to come into his head.

Jamie had said he would let Creative know.

“The bedroom is in there,” Erick said, gesturing. Luke had followed him upstairs, forgetting they weren’t Sheep anymore. They were free. Erick hoped, filled with thoughts and doubts again, that Luke would presume the bedroom was neatly made up expecting his company. That Erick’s blankets were bundled under the window as a symbol of courtesy, letting his guest take the bed.

Luke grunted. He had moved Erick’s chairs without looking at them, both now on the same side of the table. _Are we not stronger linked than divided? Stand at my left and right; walk by my side and I will lead you to paradise._ Luke was standing behind the leftmost one, his position. Luke’s eyes had wandered over the scorched patches left by the bare bulbs on the torn plaster, but he didn’t react other than to smooth his beard.

Erick wondered what ‘relief’ felt like. He wondered if he should be smiling at young children over his freedom from Bray’s gaze. His freedom from knowing right and wrong. He wondered how singles wrestlers obtained their opponents.

Luke returned from the bedroom holding a thin blanket and no pillow. He lay down by the front door, turning the knob and letting it swing open until it hit his thigh. From the stairwell, Erick could hear the sound of his landlady shuffling about, the young men on the first floor talking loudly. Each sound made him jump, skin startling slightly. He forgot about singles wrestling. He forgot about the shouting of bright locker rooms.  Adrenaline soothed him to a simple, familiar clarity.

**Author's Note:**

> Idk why but I picture all the Wyatts eating side by side all the time like the Last Supper


End file.
